Digital musical recordings and computer programs are frequently stored on compact discs (CDs). Also digital video discs (DVDs) and MiniDisc-records (compact discs in a small size, MDs) are used for these purposes. Recently it has been decided to produce a new type of permanent digital storage medium called BLU-RAY. All these types of records are, however, generally stored in plastic covers (cassettes) of substantially the same size for each type of medium, but different sizes from medium to medium, i.e. CD, DVD, MD, and BLU-RAY. The covers have retaining means for the records or discs and inner retaining means for insertion of labels or folders.
For the sake of simplicity, all these types of records or discs in their covers are below designated “boxes”, and the expressions “box, the box, boxes and the boxes” are to be understood as any of the above stated kinds of flat box-shaped articles.
Holders or racks for such boxes are generally known in exceedingly many variants. One such holder or rack is designed by the designer group TOOLS and produced and marketed by the company Tommy Larsen, Silkeborg, Denmark. It has the form of an extruded (and thus prismatic) item which in a horizontal direction is elongated and has an almost C-shaped cross section. Thus, the two terminal points of the C-shaped cross section form rectilinear, horizontally extending jaws provided with rubber edges facing each other. The holder or rack is intended to be fastened on a wall with the two jaws turning away from the wall and facing the room.
The distance between the two jaws is adapted so that a box just fits tightly in between the rubber edges of the jaws, when set on edge with its back facing the room. The bottom jaw projects somewhat longer out from the wall than the top jaw, whereby the box is retained in a secure way even though it is loaded downwards by the gravitational force or possible impacts.
However, this rack has the drawback that the box is retained relatively tightly between the jaws. This makes it unnecessarily difficult to insert and remove boxes, and, as they are produced from a rather fragile type of plastic, they breaks easily when inserted in or removed from the known rack.
A further inconvenience of the known carrying device is that the box does not have a well-defined orientation in a rotating direction around a horizontal axis parallel to the wall on which the rack is mounted. No well-defined stops being provided for the rear edge of the box and at the same time, the box moves stiffly at insertion, it is difficult for a user to reach a well-defined position for each individual box, and consequently they are not aligned with each other when they are placed in the rack.
Finally, it is a disadvantage of the known rack that when removing a box from the rack, the box can only be seized by the two corners facing the room.
Another rack of the initially stated kind and designed by Frank Nielsen is known from a catalogue “Living Design—Music is the Dream Language of the World” from the company LIVING DESIGN of AM Denmark NS, Kokkedal, Denmark (page 23).
This rack consists of an extruded rail mounted horizontally on a wall or the like. The rail has near its top edge two narrowly spaced, elongated, horizontal jaws of which the top jaw is drawn backwards against the wall and the bottom jaw projects into the room.
Between these two jaws, an inner end of an arm or cantilever can be arranged and in its rest position project horizontally into the room and furthermore swing in a horizontal plane and thus be left in any desired angle with the wall, in the horizontal plane.
The Boxes are each arranged hanging down from one of these arms by hooks on the underside of the arm being engaged with recesses provided on the upper edge of cover of the box in connection with the retaining means for the insertion labels or folder.
Thus, the Boxes may swing sideways forwards and backwards in a way in which a reader may “leaf” through a book. It is easy to watch the fronts of the boxes in order to choose one to be played or entered into the computer.
The boxes with attached arms may probably be detached from the wall rail when they are to be played. If the boxes are transported, it is, however, usually necessary to demount the arms.
It is a drawback of this rack that the boxes are not particularly close in the sideways direction. It is obviously necessary with a considerably mutual horizontal distance between the boxes for them to be able to swing sufficiently widely. The rack has thus a considerably reduced storage capacity per occupied cubic unit in relation to racks where the boxes are stored closely.
It is a further considerable inconvenience of this rack that the hooks of the arms are fragile because of their required cooperation with the standard recesses in the box, and that the covers or boxes, as stated, are produced from a very fragile material.
More recently EP 1 143 843 discloses a storage and display device for a plurality of vertically arranged flat box-shaped items, which device has a supporting structure constituted by an extruded metal blank having a vertical rigid back, a relatively smooth and plane, essentially horizontal, lower supporting face integrated with said back for the lower edges of the box-shaped items, and an upper horizontal retaining member integrated with said back and extending in the lateral direction and carrying a rubber-elastic member under its lower surface and extending in the lateral direction for engagement with the upper edges of the box-shaped items inserted into the device.
The plane and smooth supporting face permits the boxes to swing around an essentially vertical axis even though their weight essentially rests on the supporting face. The insertion and removal of a box is essentially facilitated as the lower, inner corner of the box may slide in place even after the rubber-elastic member of the retaining means has obtained a braking engagement with the upper inner corner of the box.
The rigid back behind the supporting face acts as a stop securing fastening of a box in a definite position. As the box is mainly retained by its two inner corners (which are in front in the insertion direction), the gravity will make it swing around a horizontal axis in the lateral direction of the rack. This corresponds to an inward force acting at the lower stop adjacent to the supporting device, and this force is absorbed by the stop. At the same time it is assured that all the boxes are aligned to each other, whereby a favourable visual impression is obtained.
The supporting surface and the rubber member extend relatively shortly from the front side of the back, preferably about 10 and 5 mm, respectively.
This allows leafing in a plurality of boxes as the axis of rotation in the swinging leafing movement will be correspondingly close to the rear edge of the box. This provides the user with a convenient access to watch the fronts of the boxes where the most relevant and most easily recognisable information is frequently found.
The rubber-elastic member of the retaining member may comprise an edge or lip facing the articles, which lip points in the direction towards the stop of the retaining means, i.e. backwards towards the front side of the rack.
By an edge or lip engaging the upper edge of the box, a reduced insertion force and a better retaining are obtained due to the resiliency of the edge or lip. This resiliency gives per se a lesser resistance when inserting the box in the rack. During insertion in the rack, the resiliency of the edge or lip means that the rubber-elastic edge abutting against the upper edge of a box is deformed instead of slipping when the box is subjected to stress for removal. The rubber edge thus maintains a better “grip” in the upper edge of a box.
However this prior art device has the drawback that it is only capable of to accommodate one type of flat boxes of a particular vertical size, e.g. covers for CDs, MDs, DVDs or BLU-RAYs. Once it is produced it can only be used for such one type of such covers, and it cannot be changed to any other type of covers having a different vertical dimension, neither by the manufacturer nor by the user. This is rather impractical for both the manufacturer and the users and hence there is a need for a storing device which can easily be changed to accommodate any of the common standard covers or cassettes for CDs, MDs, DVDs and BLU-RAYs.